I love the idea of summer. I have this image of me, slim and tanned, nonchalantly sporting cut-offs and a t-shirt, mucking around in the sea, trip-trapping through the sand-dunes, playing beach volleyball with James and his mates. Or standing, Pimms in hand, looking sultry and sunkissed in a floaty dress with spaghetti straps at summer barbecues. Oh dream on, sunbeam. The reality is that I huddle, under cover of a beach shelter, in jeans and long-sleeved top, laden with Factor 50, nose in book, moaning when sand gets in my ready-mix G&T.
Summer and I don’t get on really. Spaghetti straps and skimpy tees are no-nos when you’re a J cup. But mainly my problem is my uber-white Celtic skin. Skin so white it gleams in the dark. When I was young I thought that, at some point or other, my freckles would simply join up and – hey presto – I’d be tanned. Of course they didn’t – they just turned into age spots.
I went through a phase of trying fake tans but fell victim to the twin miseries of orange streaks and the all-pervasive stench of burnt biscuit. I tried to convince myself that it was fashionable to be pale but pale on an ethereal eighteen-year old and pale on a pudgy middle-aged frump are two quite different things. So I gave up.
Then someone sent me a tube of Xen-Tan. I sniffed – it smelled of vanilla. I rubbed a little on my arm – it felt like a nice body cream. Encouraged, I massaged it into my legs and – hey presto – a few hours later I was brown. I was so excited that I emailed my editor and asked if she wanted a feature on fake tans. True to form she ignored the email for several weeks and then, on Friday, said – ‘Yes! Do it now! Try out every kind you can think of and let me have the copy by Monday.’ She tends to forget that a) I don’t live in London and b) all expenses were cut a couple of years ago. ‘Um, that’s a tall order,’ I said. ‘Wednesday then?’
Dear gods. This reminded me of when part of my job was road-testing hairdressers. I started off with a shoulder-length swathe and ended up with a GI crop. When they couldn’t cut, they coloured and – after a dizzy trip through the rainbow of hair colourants – my hair turned into slime. ‘You’ve killed it,’ said the last one, suggesting a feature on wigs.
Okay, so this isn’t as extreme but how can you test out fake tans when you’ve only got one body? Answer (a touch of brilliance, I thought): try out different ones on different bits. So I’m now a patchwork of tan. And brown, very very very brown.
‘Good god,’ said Adrian, as I walked down the stairs in pedal-pushers and a floaty top (with thick straps). ‘What on earth have you done?’
Don’t you just love the esteem-boosting effect of the average husband?
As I walked over to my friend Rachel’s car, she leaned out the window, staring at my legs. ‘You’ve been St Tropezed,’ she said. Actually, spot-on, the legs were St Tropez. I spent the entire journey to Taunton apologising about the smell; she spent the entire journey apologising for her feet. We had a very funny conversation which I wish I could remember but I was laughing too hard.
We saw Five Soldiers, a piece of contemporary dance which followed five soldiers through training (monotonous drill) into a tight-knit unit (while revealing their individual personalities). It showed clearly that behind the uniform and discipline are real people, with real passions and pain. Given feelings about the war in Afghanistan, I was surprised (and saddened) that the audience was so sparse.
'It's the world cup,' said Rachel.
Ah yes. Of course. Nothing more important.
‘To be honest, I preferred the one with the whirling monks,’ said Rachel. ‘Or the one where they captured members of the audience and put them in bin bags.’
‘Yeah, me too.’ I felt awful saying it but no, it's not a feelgood show. Not when one of the soldiers ends up losing his legs.
‘We didn’t laugh at this one,’ I said.
‘No,’ said Rachel, rather sadly. We have spent several productions weeping quietly into our handbags, disguising snorts with bouts of coughing. It’s great for the soul – probably doesn’t work so well for the performers.
We didn't laugh much on the way home.
Yesterday my lovely brown legs and I spent the day attacking the garden with particular verve and vim. Today we shall go and see David Bellamy in the churchyard (no, he’s not dead – just opening our revamped church).
I won’t be wearing a spaghetti-strapped dress but, curiously, I will be feeling happier about my summer self. Not just because I've found my ideal bronze but because I still have a pair of legs to get brown (one way or another). And that's simply not a choice for some of those soldiers coming back from Afghanistan.
PS - check out Project Mobility - a great small charity.
